How to use artillery in CM - an empirical study

[Grey_Fox]

@Free Whisky has just released this excellent video on the use of artillery, showing the results of his experimentation: 

Some great stuff, such as how many guns of given calibers are needed to achieve a rate of fire which will suppress a given distance, the distances from impact at which units will be "pinned", the effects of regular smoke versus WP (regular smoke is better at obscuration), and the effects of weather conditions on smoke (turns out only wind affects smoke in CM, rain does not), and the efficacy of general versus personnel fire missions on infantry in the open, woods, buildings, and fortifications.

Edited July 13, 2022 by Grey_Fox

[Vanir Ausf B]

Adding this to my watch list.

Thanks!

[OldSarge]

It just popped up on my YT feed, can't watch it ATM but looking forward to it.

Thanks

[Bulletpoint]

Thanks. I did not know that artillery could destroy tank traps. Or that WP smoke lifted from the ground.

Edited July 13, 2022 by Bulletpoint

[OldSarge]

 

Finally got a  timeout to be able to watch it. Excellent presentation and a great job!

Edited July 14, 2022 by OldSarge

[Simcoe]

Since we're discussing it, is there ever a time you WOULDN'T use the maximum duration on all fire missions? Does setting a duration provide any advantage compared to just cancelling the fire mission?

[A Canadian Cat]

11 hours ago, Simcoe said:

Since we're discussing it, is there ever a time you WOULDN'T use the maximum duration on all fire missions? Does setting a duration provide any advantage compared to just cancelling the fire mission?

I use it for harassing fire or speculative fire sometimes - don't want to use up all the ammo. It also sucks if your FO gets whacked with an on going maximum duration mission. So, in high risk (to the observer) situations I frequently do not use maximum duration.

[Erwin]

Another use for MAX duration and LOW intensity is so one can move the FO to locations with better LOS and walk the barrage onto desired targets with little or no time delay. 

Did a test once and it seemed that more enemy casualties were caused by longer less intense barrages than a short high intensity barrage.  Of course all FO's should always be in the most protected locations.  (Easier on larger maps.)

[domfluff]

12 hours ago, Simcoe said:

Since we're discussing it, is there ever a time you WOULDN'T use the maximum duration on all fire missions? Does setting a duration provide any advantage compared to just cancelling the fire mission?

Durations less than maximum are a fixed number of rounds (I made a mini-mod to display this once), so you can know that a given artillery piece can perform x number of medium length missions, or whatever. That definitely helps with planning, rather than having to count/estimate it manually.

[Codreanu]

6 hours ago, Erwin said:

Did a test once and it seemed that more enemy casualties were caused by longer less intense barrages than a short high intensity barrage.

Makes sense, it will give them enough time to become unsuppressed and make themselves a bigger target just in time for the next round of shells to start landing.

[Free Whisky]

An empirical study... Love the thread title . This was the first time ever that I said 'time to work on my video' and opened excel instead of editing software . Nice to hear you guys think it has some useful info, thanks.

[Halmbarte]

I'm kinda surprised by the ineffectiveness of VT fuzed shells in urban combat... Not what I would have expected. 

Thanks for the hard work. 

H

[Ultradave]

8 hours ago, Halmbarte said:

I'm kinda surprised by the ineffectiveness of VT fuzed shells in urban combat... Not what I would have expected. 

Thanks for the hard work. 

H

Seems reasonable in real life. A VT fuze has a transmitter that fires the warhead when it reaches 7m above the ground. Firing over water and firing over highly irregular terrain (urban buildings, mixed with streets and parks, etc) can lead to unpredictable results, mostly fuzes firing before you intended them to.

Dave

[Erwin]

I especially appreciated the tests on blast radius of different calibers as well as the calculation re how many rounds needed per 75 meters of treeline for suppression of any units hiding there.

[Bulletpoint]

3 hours ago, Erwin said:

I especially appreciated the tests on blast radius of different calibers as well as the calculation re how many rounds needed per 75 meters of treeline for suppression of any units hiding there.

It seems to suppress the enemy you need so many shells that you destroy him

[Free Whisky]

1 hour ago, Bulletpoint said:

It seems to suppress the enemy you need so many shells that you destroy him

Yes, I see what you mean. I had to put the ATGM's in foxholes to prevent them from dying during the test . The things is - you can't be sure everyone is dead and it's safe to move when the fire mission is over. But you can be (reasonably) sure that anyone there is suppressed if you move during the fire mission.

[Bulletpoint]

Now that we are talking about foxholes and trenches... do you know if AT guns for example get protection from foxholes, or do they need trenches? It looks graphically as if the gun is not sitting in the actual foxhole. While if you place a mortar or MG in foxholes, they do seem to get in there.

[Vinnart]

Very polished and well presented Free Whiskey! I'll have to go over to youtube to thumbs up you.

Agree, the WIND is most important thing to check with a smoke mission. Also, I've seen WP actually be effective against Tigers if they get hit with it.

My favorite mission to run in an HvH is the harassment mission at max duration. In this way you can keep shifting it for a long time instead of having to recall from scratch, plus it keeps the pucker uncertainty factor up for along time to keep em guessing. Use to keep nervous from occupying key ground for a long time.

[Erwin]

18 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

It looks graphically as if the gun is not sitting in the actual foxhole. While if you place a mortar or MG in foxholes, they do seem to get in there.

The CM graphics are more of an abstraction.  It's always possible one of the numerous updates has changed things, but IIRC units get the benefit of foxholes even if they appear to be partly outside.  

[Bulletpoint]

26 minutes ago, Erwin said:

The CM graphics are more of an abstraction.  It's always possible one of the numerous updates has changed things, but IIRC units get the benefit of foxholes even if they appear to be partly outside.  

It's possible, but I've never seen it tested.

[chuckdyke]

10 hours ago, Erwin said:

The CM graphics are more of an abstraction. 

I think it may very well be done on purpose. More like a FOW I can't see much difference between a light or heavy fire mission. The type of mission is more important than judging the animation. 

[chuckdyke]

I would like to see a test of what is required to set off mines and IEDs with artillery. 

[Free Whisky]

On 7/17/2022 at 7:25 AM, chuckdyke said:

I would like to see a test of what is required to set off mines and IEDs with artillery. 

What you saw in that video was about 10 action squares of mines in a row. I ordered a lineair 155mm fire mission excactly over those action squares. I noted that after 21 rounds, the first red sign went green. About another 10 rounds later, the second one. After fourty rounds total, they were just about all green.

Hope that tells you something....I had written this down but I thought it to be not very useful information because of the many artillery and mortar calibres  in the games, so I didn't include it in the video.

[Vanir Ausf B]

Artillery and direct fire HE has to be 150mm or larger to affect mines. I don't know if the same is true of fortifications.

[chuckdyke]

2 hours ago, Vanir Ausf B said:

Artillery and direct fire HE has to be 150mm or larger to affect mines.

Thank you much appreciated. *SPOILER* In "Knock them all down BZ" It was possible to knock out one of the pillboxes with the 155mm. I try those things out with games I already played. 

Edited July 18, 2022 by chuckdyke